1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an item selecting apparatus for selecting a particular item indicating a piece of particular information in a browsing system in which an information memory is conversationally browsed for pieces of information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A network system has been frequently used in recent, and a case that a user browses an information memory for pieces of information has been quickly increased. In this case, an item selecting apparatus for repeatedly selecting a particular item indicating a piece of particular information from a plurality of items displayed on an image displaying unit is used to select pieces of information.
2.1. PREVIOUSLY PROPOSED ART:
A conventional item selecting apparatus shown in FIG. 1 is described.
As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional item selecting apparatus 100 is composed of an information receiving unit 101 for receiving pieces of information in a page from an external medium (or an information memory), a link managing unit 102 for detecting one or more pieces of link information respectively indicating a link relationship between the page and another page from the information received in the information receiving unit 101, an image preparing unit 103 for determining a display layout of items indicating the information received in the information receiving unit 101 and preparing an image of the items arranged according to the display layout, an image displaying unit 104 for displaying the image of the items prepared by the image preparing unit 103, and a position indicating unit 105 for indicating one of the items displayed on the image displaying unit 104 to specify a position of one item.
In the above configuration, an operation in the conventional item selecting apparatus 100 is described.
When pieces of information relating to a particular page are received in the information receiving unit 101 from an external information memory, link information indicating a link relationship between the particular page and another page is detected in the link managing unit 102 from the pieces of information, and the link information is stored and managed in the link managing unit 102. Thereafter, a display layout of items indicating the information received in the information receiving unit 101 is determined in the image preparing unit 103, and the items of the particular page are displayed on the image displaying unit 104 according to the display layout.
Thereafter, a user observes the items displayed on the image displaying unit 104. In this case, a position on the image displaying unit 104 is indicated by the position indicating unit 105. Thereafter, when the user operates the position indicating unit 105 to select a particular item while observing the position indicated by the position indicating unit 105, a particular position of the particular item selected by the user is specified by the position indicating unit 105.
In cases where information indicated by the particular item corresponds to the link information managed in the link managing unit 102, other pieces of information relating to another page linked to the particular page according to the link information are received in the information receiving unit 101 from the external information memory to again select one item indicating one of the other pieces of information. Accordingly, because a desired item can be conversationally selected, when the selection of the desired item is repeated, it is possible to browse an information memory for pieces of desired information indicated by a plurality of desired items.
2.2. PROBLEMS TO BE SOLVED BY THE INVENTION:
However, because it is required to strictly determine the position indicated by the position indicating unit 105, it is troublesome for a user to correctly select a desired item, so that there is a drawback that it is difficult to use the item selecting apparatus 100.
Also, because the items relating to one page are arranged on the image displaying unit 104 without any order, there is a drawback that it is troublesome for a user to select a desired item.